Belong
by psquare
Summary: [Season 7] The world ends every time Sam falls asleep.


This was written for the 2011 **ohsam** Sam centric h/c challenge, for **quickreaver**'s awesome prompt: _Sam has a big, whopping hallucination where he finds himself sharing a drink with his other selves, discussing life, the universe, and everything. But Soulless is a mean drunk and starts picking fights with the world, most especially his Hell self. Sam finds himself in the middle of the fracas, and between Soulless' cold brutality and Hell's first-hand knowledge of torture. It's a mess._

This story - well, it deviates a _lot_ from the prompt. Like, _wildly_. And it got really, really dark. But I hope the gist of what you wanted remains. *crosses fingers*

**Warnings: **General SPOILERS for s7, blood, violence, abuse, mentions of non-con, fucked-up-ness, torture, an _overdose_ of pronouns (you can see the kind of difficulty I'd have with those, dealing with multiple Sams. I hope the solution I found isn't _too_ jarring/annoying), weirdness, metaphor-abuse, present-tense.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Supernatural_ or any of its characters.

_**Belong**_

The world ends every time Sam falls asleep.

* * *

Sometimes—

It's a forest. It's a city. It's a desert. It's the little farmhouse that he and Dean and John had lived in for a month in Idaho, still smelling faintly of mildew and manure.

Wherever it is, it's always alone, on the edge of a world that's nothing but an abandoned shell of what it used to be. Sam finds a strange peace in the desolation; he thinks it's because he doesn't have to keep _trying_ so hard anymore. Here, at the edge of everything, he can break—

_piece_

—if he wants to—

_piece_

"And no one will care," he hears, and he smiles and nods.

* * *

It's just a room, today. It's huge, the ceiling several feet above his head, and completely bare except for a table and three chairs arranged around it. Sam tries not to look for an exit; he knows instinctively that existence outside the room is impossible—where the world blurs into a yawning, organic black, and he's falling, and falling, and falling—

"Oh, shut up," he hears. HE's already there, sprawled lazily in one of the chairs. HE smirks. "Do you have any idea how much energy you waste with all of the whining in your head? No wonder it was so easy to break your damn wall."

"I'm sorry," Sam says. He shuffles forward, settles into one of the chairs. "I'm sorry."

And he _is_. At the end of it all, when he's taken apart and stripped down to his core like some Russian doll, all he's left with is _regret_. Regret for being what he is—a weak, pathetic mess of a human being, crippled by emotion and indecision; regret loving and ever being loved; regret _existing_; regret twenty-eight years of heady arrogance and then two hundred years of punishment-love-punishment.

This is what HE tells him, anyway, every night, here at the end of everything, and Sam accepts. He doesn't bother sifting through reason or counter-argument; _fate_ and _redemption_ are concepts too high for him to reach. Sam accepts whatever HE gives to him, and finds a strange sort of peace in it.

After all, he'd already made self-flagellation into an art-form long before he'd broken.

* * *

HE isn't entirely sure when 'survival' began to mean endless, tiring melodrama, but HE thinks it might've started when HE decided to let Dean into HIS life. HE doesn't quite understand—not in the year and a half that HE was _alive_, or in the timeless eternity HE's had to spend in his head—why HE saved Dean from the djinn at all. It would've been easier to move on, leaving Dean to face the consequences of his own stupidity.

Easier to ignore that stupid spark of attachment that had HIM put on a charade, craving Dean's presence like it was some sort of drug.

HE doesn't waste time with regret, however; that's not what HE's here for. Regret, guilt, fear and shame are utterly useless unless they can be channelled into anger.

HE sees Sam sitting before HIM, head bowed and radiating self-loathing, and feels an intense wave of hatred wash through HIM. This is the man for whose survival HE was forsaken. This is the man who locks HIM up in his own mind day after day, only to let HIM out into whatever escapist shithole that his subconscious creates. This is the man who sees the devil _everyday_ and still lives and walks and talks and _survives_—everything that HE, apparently, didn't deserve.

This is the man that Dean chose over HIM.

HE gets up, feels that anger literally _fill_ HIM, like it's a tangible thing and it's tautening every muscle, coiling in the pit of HIS stomach like a spring being compressed, and compressed, and compressed—

"We worked a case today," Sam says, almost dreamily, "a 'shifter. Dean and I—we were on top of this, we really were, and then—" His voice drops. "—the 'shifter turned into Dean, and, and, there were _three_ of them. It, and Dean, and _him_, and—I had to shoot somebody. I _had_ to." A shudder runs through him, and his throat bobs erratically. HE doesn't know why HE's still picking up cues from body language when HE knows Sam like HE knows HIMSELF, but at the moment, HE can't really bring HIMSELF to care. All HE sees is this broken excuse for a living thing, and HE hates it.

"You shot Dean," HE says, as matter-of-factly as HE can.

Sam nods, makes a sound that might be a whimper. "How could I not?" he asks. "They were all real. None of them were real. Dean was going to get hurt, no matter _what_ I did."

"That's right," HE says. "Because you're a helpless lump of flesh. Always a new problem, and each time you go down you drag everybody around with you." HE draws his fist back and punches Sam across the jaw. HE wouldn't go so far as to call it _satisfying_, but Sam's head jerks back and he stays quiet and unresisting and all of it does nothing but feed the anger, so HE assumes that it has to be a good thing.

"Every time," Sam whispers.

HE hits him again, watches him tumble out of the chair, and then again, and again, and again, and this is—almost like reliving a memory, except HE _gets_ the anger this time; that horrible, twisted thing that _looks_ like HIM is not really HIM, and all HE wants to do is pound it until it's well nigh unrecognisable—

Suddenly, there's another hand on HIS, a voice saying, "Stop," and although the touch is fragile and the voice is soft, HE stops. It's (_him_), burned and scarred and bowed under the weight of centuries of torture. (_He_) is always soft, always barely-there, flitting, watching with eyes that brim with so much _pity_, so much pain.

(_He_) is the only person who can make HIM feel scared.

"I'll take care of this," (_he_) says, and kneels next to Sam, who's now curled up on the floor, bleeding from his nose, mouth and ears. "Sam," (_he_) says, "Sammy, look at me," and when (_he_) touches Sam's face, strokes his cheek, his skin _burns_ under (_his_) fingers.

For the first time, Sam moans. "Please," he says, and there are tears seeping from beneath closed eyelids, filling HIM with disdain. "Please, no—"

(_He_) bends over, whispers in Sam's ear, "You know what you have to do to make it better."

And Sam nods, frantically. "Yes," he says. "Yes, I do."

* * *

(_He_) watches and waits.

(_He_)'s seen a lot through Sam's eyes, seen pain and despair and _him_, Lucifer. That's when (_he_) started pushing through the thin veneer stretched over Sam's psyche, because it was _him_, and two hundred years (_lifetimes and lifetimes_) of devotion was calling out to (_him_).

Sam is a beautiful, fragile thing—a mosaic held together by something intangible yet so very _strong, _that (_he_)'d witnessed the first time (_he_)'d met him in Bobby's house (in the landscape of his mind—disused and eerie and smelling of death). It isn't quite blind devotion—(_he_) knows blind devotion, doesn't (_he_)? Doesn't (_he_) still crave Lucifer's touch, flaying (_him_) open and then mending (_him_), until it's the only way they communicate, the only way they _are_?—and it isn't misplaced pride, or even faith.

Maybe Sam would be inclined to call it 'love'. Sam is still innocent that way.

However strong it may be though, it can only hold Sam together. It can't heal him. (_He_) constantly searches for weaknesses, straining and poking and prodding, until Sam is seeing _him_ everywhere, breaking, breaking, breaking. Sam resorts to falling apart in his sleep, in a dreamscape that he can shape and orchestrate as he pleases. (_He_) learns to put up with this; even work with it. After all, Lucifer did teach (_him_) the virtues of patience.

(_He_) _will_ see Lucifer again; it's only a matter of time.

HE is around, of course—a necessary burden. HE is a simple being, too concerned with rationalising emotion in a plane that is nothing _but_ emotion—even now, as HE burns with anger and hatred, the room is growing smaller and smaller, red pouring down the walls, squeezing them in. A logical creature like HIM is helpless in a place like this; HE is confused, and HE takes it out on Sam.

Sam still roils with guilt; two hundred years of having his soul shattered to pieces has done nothing to erase the shame that still resides deep within his gut, twisting and coiling and begging for retribution. He accepts HIS pain like the gift he'll never tire of receiving—and (_he_) feels a stab of jealousy, for that is (_his_) gift, (_his_) alone.

Sometimes, when HE tires of throwing Sam around, (_he_)'ll drag Sam onto (_his_) lap, stroke his hair with burning fingers and tell him to not just _accept_ the pain, but to _love_ it. To recognise it for the sustenance it is. Sam doesn't understand—he never understands—and turns again and again to that intangible devotion-pride-faith. In Bobby's house, in numerous post apocalyptic dreamscapes—he accepts what is due to him, but he never loses himself to it.

(_He_)'d been like that, at first. Lucifer had torn (_him_) down and built (_him_) up so many times that although (_he_) clung to '_Dean_', (_he_) did not know what _Dean_ was. Dean was the hand that squeezed and squeezed (_his_) throat until (_he_) died a slow, painful death. Dean was the push that sent (_him_) falling, impaling (_himself_) on jagged rocks and rusted metal. Dean was the claw that pulled at the lips of (_his_) wounds, tearing and pulling at (_his_) entrails. Dean was the meat hook that scraped along bone, Dean was every violating touch, every filthy thing that was ever in (_him_) or around (_him_).

Dean was the kiss on (_his_) brow, the quiet voice that said, "It's okay, Sammy. This is for your own good."

When Dean was nothing and everything, (_he_) clung to the only reality he knew—Lucifer. Lucifer understood. Lucifer healed. Lucifer loved. Perhaps it was a madness—a beautiful kind of madness, that kept (_him_) strong through an eternity of blood-drenched captivity.

All (_he_) wants is to give in to that madness again. To accept Lucifer as the only reality.

Sam whimpers in (_his_) arms as (_his_) fingers get too close to his eyes, and (_he_) quickly withdraws with an apology. Sam's skin is already steaming, but he seems comfortable otherwise. (_He_) had offered Sam the option of staying forever within his orchestrated dreamscape the first time, to be with whomever he wanted to be, but (_he_)'d already known the futility of the proposition. Sam wasn't ready. (_He_) wasn't ready.

(_He_) thinks they're ready now, though.

"Sammy," (_he_) says. "Sammy, it's time."

Sam doesn't even question (_him_) this time, and (_he_) feels the faint stirrings of pride in (_his_) chest. _Did I not learn from you_? (_he_) wants to ask Lucifer. _Are you not proud of me, prouder than any teacher, than any father?_

Sam lifts his hand and squeezes it into a fist. HIS eyes go comically round, before HE's clutching at HIS chest, and blood is bubbling, _pouring_ out of HIS mouth. HE sinks to his knees, gives them one last blood-stained grin, says, "So you figured it out, huh?" then _explodes_—and the room explodes along with HIM, with the universe, and the dreamscape is nothing but (_him_) and Sam, floating through an eternal nothing.

Sam opens his eyes. "Please," he says. "Just—one last time. Please."

(_He_) shakes (_his_) head. "No," (_he_) says. "This has got to be it."

"Why?"

(_He_) smiles, feels it sit uncomfortably on (_his_) face. "You _know_ why," (_he_) says.

Sam nods. "I do. I really do."

(_He_) smiles wider, and closes Sam's eyes.

* * *

The world ends every time Sam falls asleep. This time, he doesn't wake up.

_**Finis**_


End file.
